The Usual Events

March Madness, the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the NBA Championships, the World Series, the Super Bowl, Champions League.  These are all yearly events and they will each still be going strong in 2011.  Even without some special events that only happen every four years 2011 should still be interesting enough just with these annual sporting championships!

2011 Cricket World Cup

If you are looking for an event that is only played every 4 years look no further than the 2011 Cricket World Cup, taking place in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.  The last Cricket World Cup took place in 2007 in the West Indies.  This year 14 nations have qualified for the tournament that will take place between February 17th and April 2nd.  The format of the tournament will include 2 groups of 7 teams.  Each country will play 6 group matches against each of the other nations within their group.  The top four finishers will then move on to the quarterfinals where the first place finisher from group A will face the fourth place finisher from group B.  From this point on it will be a single match elimination with the World Champion crowned on April 2nd.

Cricket is a very popular game worldwide and you can expect there to be a lot of betting on this tournament this year.

2011 Rugby World Cup

Another World Cup that only comes around every four years is the Rugby World Cup.  The last tournament was played in 2007 in France with South Africa taking down the title.  This time around New Zealand will host the tournament and 20 nations will be battling it out for rugby supremacy.  The tourney is set to take place over seven weekends from September 10th to October 22.  The twenty teams are split into four groups of 5 nations.  The group stage is a round robin format with the top 2 countries of each pool moving on to the quarterfinal stage.  From then on it’s single elimination with the champion of the rugby world being crowned on October 23.

Rugby is growing in popularity and you can expect a lot of bets to be placed on this event.

FIFA Women’s World Cup

One year after the men battled it out in the most popular sport in the world it’s the womens turn.  The FIFA Women’s World Cup is set to take place in Germany from June 26 to July 17.  The Germans have won the last 2 Women’s World Cups and will look to continue this streak with homefield advantage.  There are 16 teams participating in this tournament, where there will be round robin play with four groups of four followed by quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, each of which is single elimination.  We will see if the Women’s World Cup generates anywhere near the kind of betting interest the Men’s did.

As you can see there are a lot of interesting betting options this year.  If any of these interest you enough to open an online betting account make sure you look into sports betting deposit bonuses.  Bonuses can really help you turn an event into a profitable venture.

The March Madness tournament selection takes place this Sunday March 14th and the tournament gets underway shortly thereafter on the 16th.  The Kansas Jayhawks are the pretournament favourites, while the defending champion North Carolina Tarheels won’t even be at the dance to defend their title.  You heard that right, the Tarheels will not even be participating in this March Madness tournament!  Well we know we will have a new champion, but who will it be?

Then in June the World Cup of soccer takes place in South Africa.  The first game takes place on June 11th and the tournament will run for exactly a month until the tournament concludes on the 11th of July.  Spain is the pretourney favourite with 4/1 odds to take the title, while Brazil is a close second with 5/1 odds.  Rounding out the top five are England, Argentina and Italy.  I personally like Germany or the Netherlands to take down the championship, but we will have to wait and see.  One thing is for sure, the World Cup is never dull.

The NHL and NBA seasons are drawing to a close with only a handful of games left in each.  The playoff race is heating up and this is the most exciting time of the season.  Then when the season closes we of course are treated to some good, exciting playoff hockey and basketball.  Personally, I’m a huge hockey fan and I always get excited for my NHL playoff pool.  Last year I finished second, but this year I’m confident I will take down the top prize.  In the NHL the Chicago Blackhawks and the Washington Capitals are currently the teams to beat, each with 15/4 odds to win the Stanley Cup.  In the NBA the Los Angeles Lakers are of course big favourites to repeat led by superstar Kobe Bryant.  Either way the favourites on paper don’t matter, they still have to prove it on the ice and the court.

Post Olympics betting seems like it will be just fine.  March Madness, the 2010 World Cup, the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs and the NBA Championships are all in the near future so us sports bettors have a lot to look forward to!  Then only two short years until the Summer Olympics!

Now the Slovaks, who are often left out when experts talk about the top hockey nations in the world, have a chance to leave their mark on these Olympics and solidify their inclusion in the “big 7″ hockey countries.  To do this they must beat the top hockey country in the world, Canada.

Bodog felt Canada was too large a favourite to offer a moneyline, so instead a 2.5 goal spread is being offered.  Here are the odds:

Slovakia +2.5 -120
Canada -2.5 +100

Bet on either team at Bodog.com

Canada must win by 3 goals to cover this spread.  Three goals is a lot to win a game by and the Slovaks are a much better team than many people give them credit for.  Gaborik, Hossa, Palffy and more can all score goals, and I don’t see Slovakia being shutout in this game, which means Canada would have to score plenty of goals to cover a 2.5 goal spread.  I think they can do it, but I believe more often than not, they won’t.

My Prediction: Canada 4 – Slovakia 2

Bodog.com odds for the game:

Finland +165
USA -190

Place your bet at Bodog.com now!

This game could easily go either way so with these odds you have to take Finland.  I personally think Finland will win and would have placed a bet on them if the odds were even.

Predictions: Finland 3 – USA 1

Canada are the defending Olympic gold medal champions, but that victory came 4 years ago and it wasn’t even against the USA, who were shockingly defeated in the semi-finals that year by Sweden.  This time around, it won’t be that easy.  USA has made the finals and they are ready to continue you their run of dominance in women’s international hockey.  The USA have won the past 2 world championships, which should probably make them the favourites in this game.

Being a Canadian I’m going to be cheering for Canada, but in my gut I feel like the USA have the better team and will come out on top after the final buzzer.  On top of this, Canada will go into the game favoured by all the online bookies, which will make betting on the USA that much more tempting.

My Prediction: USA 3 – Canada 2

Bet on either team at Bodog.com!

Canada -4.5        -140
Germany +4.5       +110

This means that Canada must win by 5 or more goals for a bet on Canada to win, and the bet has -140 odds, which means you must wager $140 to win $100.

Now here is what I think.

5 goals is a lot to win a hockey game by.  The Swedes only beat the Germans by 2 goals and the Finns only won by 5 which would have just beat this spread.  These results would have you lean in favour of Germany in this bet, especially since Canada is favoured to beat this spread according to the (-140) to (+110) american odds.

However, Canada did go all out against a similar team in the round robin, beating Norway by 8 goals, and that game wasn’t even an elimination game.  Canada will come out in this game vs Germany with all guns blazing in an attempt to regain some confidence after their last two poor games.  If Canada gets an early lead you can expect that they will keep pressuring and trying to run up the score in an attempt to improve their chemistry, and regain their scoring touch.  For these reasons Canada should beat the spread and win this game over Germany by a large margin.

My prediction: Canada 7 – Germany 1

Take Canada to beat the spread at Bet365 now!

Team Canada will be led by arguably the best female player ever to play the game, Hayley Wickenheiser.  The USA won the last meaningful meeting between the two clubs at the 2009 World Championships of Womens hockey.  USA defeated Canada 4-1 leaving Canadian coach questioning their desire.

This time around, Canada should know what is on the line.  The entire country will be behind them in Vancouver and this should provide the motivation and heart that is needed to defeat a stellar team like the USA.

My Prediction: Canada 4 – USA 2

Bet365 currently offers the best odds for betting on Canada at the Olympics.
Place your bet at Bet365 now!

Canada has been at the top of international curling for some time now and I feel team Bernard should be able to keep them there with a gold medal at this years Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  Look for a Canada vs China final, with Canada pulling out a tight victory.

My Prediction: Team Canada wins gold!

Bodog offers the best odds for betting on Canada in Women’s Curling.
Visit Bodog now!

Check out the entire list of Women’s curling odds, which compares the odds between various sportsbooks online.

Check out all of the Winter Olympics odds at Paddy Power!

Men’s 15km Cross Country Skiing

Lukas Bauer of Germany is currently the favourite in the men’s 15km cross country skiing event with odds of 4/1.  After him 6 other skiers are tied with odds of 7/1.

Women’s 15km Cross Country Skiing

Charlotte Kalla of Sweden is the women to beat in this event at the upcoming Olympic games.  Kalla has odds of 3/1 to win the event Bjoergen of Norway at 7/2 and Polish skier Kowalczyk at 4/1.

Mens Curling

Canada is the overwhelming favourite to take down the Mens curling gold medal with odds of 4/5.  There closest competitors are Great Britain with odds of 4/1 and Norway with odds of 9/2.

Womens Curling

Not surprisingly, Canada is also favourites to win the Womens curling gold in Vancouver with 3/2 odds.  China has the second best odds with Switzerland rounding up the top 3.

Four Man Bobsled

The Germans are the team to beat this time around with Paddy Power odds of 8/13.  Following them is the USA in second with 2/1 odds and then there is a big gap down to Russia who has 11/2 odds to win the gold.

Overall Medal Table Winners

Who are the favourites to take down the most medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver?  Well it’s not the hometown Canadians.  Canada has the second best odds to win the most medals at the Olympics in Vancouver with odds of 3/1.  The overwhelming favourites to repeat however are the Germans with 5/4 odds.  The USA is the third favourites, with Russia, Austria and Norway rounding out the top 6.

You can find all of the pre-event odds at Paddy Power.  I think it’s great that Paddy Power has released these odds with a month to go until the Olympics.  This should get people interested in the games and the athletes who are competiting for their countries.

Some of the surprise inclusions for the team included Drew Doughty, Brent Seabrook, Brendan Morrow, Eric Staal, Patrice Bergeron and Jonathon Toews.

Defenceman Surprises

Personally I was very happy with the seven defencemen chosen for the team including Doughty and Seabrook.  Doughty has been having a tremendous year for the LA Kings.  He has tightened up his game defensively and he will be a welcome force on the point for the Canadian powerplay.  Seabrook is a solid shut down defenceman who can pair with Duncan Keith to be a force just like they were in Chicago’s run during the Stanley Cup playoffs last year.  Seabrook wasn’t really mentioned much towards the end of the speculation period because he hasn’t really drawn much attention to himself throughout the season.  But if you are a shutdown defenceman, no press is good press and Yzerman knows that Seabrook will come ready to play in Vancouver.

Some defencemen that many experts had on their speculative rosters who didn’t make the team include Jay Bouwmeester, Mike Green and Dion Phaneuf.  These are all solid defencemen, but there just wasn’t enough room on the roster for these players.  Everyone knew it would come down to either Dan Boyle or Mike Green to be the offensive d-man and first powerplay quarterback and in the end I think Yzerman made the right choice with Boyle.  Bouwmeester was apparently the hardest player to keep off the team, with it coming down to him and Doughty for the last defenceman spot.  In the end I think the management realized that when you have seven solid d-men you don’t need a player who can eat up 30 minutes, but instead you need a player who can bring something special to 15 minutes or so.  For me, this is the reason Doughty got the nod over Bouwmeester.

Forward Surprises

Brendan Morrow got the nod over Ryan Smyth and Shane Doan to be a fourth line energy player and bring some veteran leadership to the dressing room.  Personally, I feel that any of these three players could have done the job, but I have confidence that Morrow will lay it all on the line in Vancouver.  Staal was a surprise because he has had a slow start the season and he plays center, a position that Canada did decide to overload, taking seven natural centerman.  Bergeron is another one of these centermen, but he will likely play the wing in Vancouver.  Bergeron is probably the biggest surprise of the entire team, but he will be counted on to kill penalties and provide some energy and offense while seeing limited ice time.

St. Louis not being named to the team was the biggest surprise to me because he was on every experts list, usually pencilled on on the second line.  St. Louis has been having another solid year for the Tampa Bay Lightning with 45 points in 41 games at the time of this article.  That’s good enough for 12th spot in the entire league.  I think Canada should have taken this solid RW instead of loading up on centremen.  Some other forwards who were overlooked include Brad Richards (48 points, 7th in NHL), Steven Stamkos (39 points, 23rd in NHL), Lecavalier (38 points), Doan (28 points), Carter (33 points) and Mike Fisher (32 points).

Too Many Top Players

Canada just has too many top players in the NHL for every deserving player to make the team.  Team Canada’s second or third teams would still be a force in an international tournament like this, but only one team is eligible and one team will carry the hopes and expectations of an entire nation.

The Olympics are fast approaching and I would suggest checking out our sportsbook reviews so you are ready to start making some money wagering when the time comes.